Q: Where Was Finduilas Daughter of Orodreth Born?
ANSWER: The short answer is that there is no mention of Finduilas’ birth place in any of the published stories of which I am aware. So far as I can determine, Finduilas was born in Middle-earth and probably was always deemed by Tolkien to have a Sindarin mother. But Christopher Tolkien only reveals the most details about Finduilas’ family in his note on Gil-galad’s parentage in The Peoples of Middle-earth, where he publishes a note his father had made:
Finrod left his wife in Valinor and had no children in exile. Angrod’s son was Artaresto, who was beloved by Finrod and escaped when Angrod was slain, and dwelt with Finrod. Finrod made him his ‘steward’ and he succeeded him in Nargothrond. His Sindarin name was Rodreth (altered to Orodreth because of his love of the mountains ……. His children were Finduilas and Artanaro = Rodnor later called Gil-galad. (Their mother was a Sindarin lady of the North. She called her son Gil-galad.) Rodnor Gil-galad escaped and eventually came to Sirion’s Mouth and was King of the Noldor there.
Of this note Christopher goes on to say:
The words that I cannot read contain apparently a preposition and a proper name, and this latter could be Faroth (the High Faroth west of the river Narog). — In the last of the genealogical tables Artanaro (Rodnor) called Gil-galad appears, with the note that ‘he escaped and dwelt at Sirion’s Mouth’. The only further change was the rejection of the name Artaresto and its replacement by Artaher, Sindarin Arothir; and thus in the excursus (note 23) Arothir [Orodreth] is named as Finrod’s ‘kinsman and steward’, and (note 47) Gil-galad is ‘the son of Arothir, nephew of Finrod’. The final genealogy was:
Finrod Felagund Angrod
Artaher/Arothir [Orodreth]
Artanaro/Rodnor/Gil-galadSince Finduilas remained without correction in the last of the genealogies as the daughter of Arothir, she became the sister of Gilgalad. There can be no doubt that this was my father’s last word on the subject;…
Angrod and his brother died in the Dagor Bragollach (the Battle of Sudden Flame, which broke the Leaguer of Angband in First Age year of the Sun 455); they had held Dorthonion as a fief of Finrod’s kingdom of Nargothrond. In The Silmarillion, where Orodreth was one of the sons of Finarfin rather than Angrod’s son, he was in charge of Tol Sirion. To shift Orodreth down in the genealogy should not require that he be removed as Lord of Tol Sirion.
Finrod established the Kingdom of Nargothrond in First Age year of the Sun 52. The fortress of Tol Sirion may not have been established until the year 60 (the year of the Dagor Aglareb, or “Glorious Battle”) or slightly after, when the Long Peace began. Orodreth could have been born and come to maturity by this time. He would thus have had almost 400 years in which to meet and marry his wife and have two children (Gil-galad and Finduilas). She was apparently full-grown or nearly so when Gwindor was captured in the year 472 battle, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
On the basis of this information, it seems more likely to me that Finduilas was born in or near Tol Sirion sometime between the years 60 and 455. However, this is an inference and is not a definitive explanation from J.R.R. Tolkien.
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